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Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#91

Post by joesmo »

virtualwhys wrote: post #72

Well, let's look at the JVM landscape. First of all Oracle has (finally) picked up the pace in terms of evolving Java and the JVM. This is a bit of a double edged sword for alternative JVM languages since on the one hand JVM improvements (like current SAMs and value types in Java 10) are a big win for all involved, but on the other, Java's evolution is very much a threat to Scala, Kotlin, and Ceylon in particular* Wh…

I don't think any new additions to Java will threaten Clojure. Worst comes to worst, I see Clojure moving off the JVM if the platform becomes untenable in the future, though there's nothing to indicate that it would.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#92

Post by dodyg »

octocoupler wrote: post #51
dodyg wrote: post #9

I started an open source Android project in Kotlin ( https://github.com/dodyg ) three years ago so I have witnessed the language evolution from early on. This is what I love about Kotlin: - It is IMHO the best language to develop native application in Android by far. - I was primarily a C# developer (still now) and I could pick up the language in a day. The language is quite small for people that has already known a…

What is the 'swift syndrome'?

Swift was developed in secret and launched to unsuspecting public in near 'complete' status in 2014 then a 1.2 version quickly followed. Now it is version 2.0 after one year of launch. That is some serious version inflation.

Kotlin was developed in the open from much of its development and you can see how the language evolves based on the feedback of early adopters. There is no rush to 1.0 until they feel they got the right mix of features.

I just think the way Jetbrains approached the development of the language is more responsible and it bodes well for future iteration of the language.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#93

Post by adriaanm »

pron wrote: post #49
connor4312 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my admittedly limited experience in the JVM world, your needs sounds like Scala's sales pitch. What factored in to your decision to develop Kotlin, rather than going with Scala?

The two languages have completely different philosophies. Kotlin is a strict adherent of the Java philosophy[1], a "blue collar language" that adopts only tried-and-true features, with PL research being a non-goal. Scala OTOH, adopts almost every new PL concept, and PL research is very much one of its goals. A quick look at Scala's list implementation will show you how different those languages are. Kotlin is a moder…

As the Scala tech lead, I'm glad to learn we've finally adopted "almost every new PL concept!" I guess by now everyone will recognize your username and adjust for bias accordingly, but still, how about sticking to the facts?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#94

Post by gamesbrainiac »

maikklein wrote: post #74

How does Kotlin compare to Ceylon? Has anyone written something in both languages and can share their impression?

Quite similar in terms of feature-sets, but I would say Kotlin has better tooling and Ceylon has better documentation, and tutorials.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#95

Post by nchelluri »

hhariri wrote: post #66
nchelluri wrote: post #43

After reading this and seeing some Jetbrains blog posts about Kotlin before, I decided to try it out. I downloaded Intellij IDEA Community Edition, and with Java 7 already installed on my machine (OS X 10.10 - I use Java for RubyMine support), I went through the tutorial here: Getting Started with IntelliJ IDEA - http://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/getting-started.html I started at about 12:55 (download time in Fire…

Your brain dump is fantastic feedback for us. Can really help us improve the getting started and docs. Thanks for this!

You're welcome :) Glad to be of service.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#96

Post by DennisP »

J0-onas wrote: post #54
octocoupler wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the 'swift syndrome'?

Im guessing making somwhat radical decision that are not backwards compatible. However, Python 2/3 is a better example for breaking backwards compatibility.

I just started learning Swift, and I keep running into stackoverflow answers saying "Here's how it worked in 1.0. In 1.2 you have to do this instead. But in 2.0 you do it this other way."

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#97

Post by msie »

octocoupler wrote: post #51
dodyg wrote: post #9

I started an open source Android project in Kotlin ( https://github.com/dodyg ) three years ago so I have witnessed the language evolution from early on. This is what I love about Kotlin: - It is IMHO the best language to develop native application in Android by far. - I was primarily a C# developer (still now) and I could pick up the language in a day. The language is quite small for people that has already known a…

What is the 'swift syndrome'?

For me, the swift language is becoming dangerously like Scala. It's becoming a really large language syntax-wise. Trying to incorporate too many features.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#98

Post by pbh101 »

throwaway999777 wrote: post #76
hhariri wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To summarize, we were looking for a language that could cut down our code base (IntelliJ platform and server side tools are written in Java), be concise but still expressive, toolable, as fast as Java, easy ramp-up time, and very important, interoperable with all the existing code base we had. Given the candidates at the time, it was decided to start Kotlin.

Was there a need to develop a Java IDE in Java to begin with? I can understand dog fooding by building IDE-primarily-for-lang in lang itself. But were there technical reasons? Or maybe Java just was the best alternative [at the time].

As a user of it, I appreciate that I've been able to use it on three different OS's with minimal adjustment, which Java facilitates more so than other languages, especially other languages which would be reasonable candidates for a thick-client application like this.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#99

Post by cmkrnl »

hhariri wrote: post #66
nchelluri wrote: post #43

After reading this and seeing some Jetbrains blog posts about Kotlin before, I decided to try it out. I downloaded Intellij IDEA Community Edition, and with Java 7 already installed on my machine (OS X 10.10 - I use Java for RubyMine support), I went through the tutorial here: Getting Started with IntelliJ IDEA - http://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/getting-started.html I started at about 12:55 (download time in Fire…

Your brain dump is fantastic feedback for us. Can really help us improve the getting started and docs. Thanks for this!

I certainly recognize some of these pain points :) the need to register JDKs is not presented in a manner that's easy to understand.

Then there's the warning about unregistered VCS roots. I confess that rather than looking into the meaning of this warning and trying to fix it, I just uninstall the VCS plugin (git in my case) and do revision control outside of IDEA (TortoiseGit).

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here programmed in Kotlin? What do you think about it?

#100

Post by tootie »

msluyter wrote: post #81
EdwardDiego wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Kotlin still misses is somehow a good testing ability, to test it via Java Test Suites seems strange. Why? > I mean Maven really sucks Why? > Also these days a language needs Dependency Injection There's plenty of JVM libraries that provide it. Why does a language need to provide it?

> I mean Maven really sucks Why? I think after a while one gets tired of using XML as a configuration language. It's verbose and not the easiest to read. Beyond that, we used to find ourselves in dependency hell with maven pretty frequently, though that hasn't happened to me in a few years. The biggest problem, imho, is that it's inflexible. You can't just (easily) throw in a bit of functionality or make an unusual t…

I think that calling something verbose and unreadable is an oxymoron. XML is very explicit about what each field is labeled. Having an XSD means you always know what field is available where and what type of values are permitted. BUT, if you're still not happy, there's always polyglot maven[1]

[1] https://github.com/takari/polyglot-maven

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